Sensitivity of Botrytis cinerea isolate collected from gladiolus against selected fungicides, plant oils and botanicals in North India

Integrated disease management is the best and most environmentally friendly technique for managing of a plant disease. Among the nine fungicides tested in vitro against Botrytis cinerea, which causes grey mould in Gladiolus, hexaconazole and a combination of iprodione+carbendazim exhibited complete inhibition of the mycelia growth at all the tested concentrations. In the evaluation of 15 different plant oils against B. cinerea, oils of Mentha piperita, Cymbopogon martini, Pelargonium graveolens, Cymbopogon sp., and Oreganum vulgare resulted in 100% mycelial growth inhibition of B. cinerea at all concentrations ranging from 200 to 1000 ppm. Aqueous extract of cloves of Allium sativum resulted best among the different botanicals and bioproducts tested in vitro with a maximum average mycelial growth inhibition of 57.39%, followed by the leaves of Azadirachta indica (45.47%) at 20, 50, 75, and 100 ppm. In integrated management of the grey mould of gladiolus under in vivo conditions, the combination of quintal + A. sativum + neem oil exhibited the maximum reduction in disease (94.40 %), followed by the combination of contaf + A.sativum + neem oil, which showed 93.19% disease reduction. The treatments viz., quintal +A.sativum + neem oil also resulted in the most superior treatment in enhancing growth and yield parameters of gladiolus with significantly improved plant height (70.34 cm), yield of corms (38.00), spike length (53.17 cm), number of florets (15.65), and number of flowers (32.67). These results indicate that the integrated management approach by using fungicides, botanicals and essential oils could be used for the control of grey mould diseases caused by Botrytis pathogens.